


All of These Decimals and I'm Not Doing You

by acareeroutofrobbingbanks



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Fluff, I mean really, Library AU, M/M, WARNING: excessive dewey decimals, aggressive use of dewey decimal classification, mostly peterick, the guys are librarians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:24:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3621429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acareeroutofrobbingbanks/pseuds/acareeroutofrobbingbanks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Every day, for the past month, Patrick had had to re-shelve The Book, The Marvel Encyclopedia, because every single day it ended up in the biography section,"</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>In which Patrick is a librarian, and Pete never quite understood how subtleties worked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All of These Decimals and I'm Not Doing You

“Oh my God, is that the guy?”

Patrick bounded, actually bounded over to the book cart Brendon was at, and his jaw dropped. Standing in the the 741.509s was a short guy with fringey black hair hidden under a beanie, and he was holding The Book. The Book, capital T capital B, which was actually called The Marvel Encyclopedia (a definitive guide to Marvel Comics™ characters) was becoming lore in the library, thanks to Patrick.

“Maybe this is a coincidence,” Patrick said. Then- “Shit, he’s looking. Come on, into the shelves.”

Patrick and Brendon wheeled the squeaky book cart into the 793s, which was filled with much abused sports books that no one seemed to ever check out, but constantly had to be put back damaged. Patrick watched with intense hawk eyes as the guy casually flipped through the encyclopedia, and then began to walk off with it.

“Oh my God,” Brendon repeated, his voice a mere whisper. “This is the guy.”

“Oh, that bitch!” Patrick hissed, abandoning Brendon and the book cart to follow him. The man with the beanie was walking away, still flipping through the pages completely aimlessly as he walked. Sure enough, he turned into the 921s, and set the book down next to a biography of Hitler, and walked away.

“Oh. My. God.” Brendon whispered, clinging on to Patrick’s arm again. “Oh my God he did it.”

“This means war.” Patrick promised.

***

Every single day that Patrick worked, he had to shelve the whole nonfiction section. It was huge, and way too big of a job for one person, but he was good at shelving books, and the library only had to keep one person on the pay roll for almost a third of the library. Not that it was a very big library, because there was a much bigger one in town, but even still. And every day, for the past month, Patrick had had to re-shelve The Book, The Marvel Encyclopedia, because every single day it ended up in the biography section, right next to the Hitlers. It was a big book. It didn’t go in the reference section, but it was big enough to be a reference book. Patrick had more than enough work to do just shelving books, but he had to also put back all the misplaced books, including that mammoth.

Patrick had often complained about The Book, and no one heard him complain more than Brendon, who was on call to fetch books for people. If someone couldn’t find a book with a computer, they called Brendon, who knew the Dewey Decimal system better than anyone, and was one of the few employees that ever ventured into the nonfiction section, so he was one of the few employees that Patrick had any amount of contact with. Patrick had applied for his job, but they said he didn’t smile enough to be in that close of contact with the patrons. He never begrudged Brendon of the job, though. Patrick was paid just as much, and Brendon really was better with people, as demonstrated by his ability to befriend Patrick, of all people.

Whenever Brendon led someone to the 741.5s (comic books) he would give Patrick an almost imperceptible head shake, to let him know that they were not looking for The Marvel Encyclopedia. Patrick didn’t really expect that they would be. Whoever was doing this already knew where The Book was.

“If I have to show one more girl where the Sandman comics are,” Brendon would confide in him. “I’m going to just move them into the fiction section with the rest of the Gaimans.

“The Book was next to Hitler again,” Patrick would tell him. “And somebody knocked over the entire religion section.”

“Curiosity or budding hate criminal?” Brendon would ask.

“The Bibles and the Hitchen’s got knocked over, so I think it’s general douchebaggery.”

The two of them worked well together, and Brendon was stunningly amused by Patrick’s continuous anger at whoever was moving The Book.

“Stan Lee never wrote a Hitler biography!” Patrick would huff, never screaming, for it was still a library, but wanting to. “Why does he put it there?!”

“I dunno man, willing Captain America to life? Suggestion for reorganization??”

***

“He’s doing it again!” Patrick whined, grabbing Brendon’s arm. Brendon stepped on Patrick’s foot and gestured to the woman next to him, so Patrick waited patiently as Brendon led her to the 355s for “The Art of War”. He came over with a sigh, and said “Who’s doing what now?”

Patrick jabbed his finger over at the guy in the comic section, the same guy in a different ratty beanie with the same greasy black hair, lifting the book off the shelf and carrying it over to the 921s.

“Go stop him then!” Brendon suggested, nudging Patrick forward. Patrick squeaked at the shove, and walked down the rows of shelves, and walked over to face the guy in the biography section, As soon as he set down The Book, Patrick cleared his throat and asked “Are you done with that?”

The man smiled at him, with a wide, toothy grin, and big brown eyes that made Patrick stop in his tracks and stare.

“Yeah, totally, did you want to check it out?” he asked, blinking way too thick eyelashes. He bent down to pick up the book, holding it out to Patrick with that huge grin on his face.

“I’m putting it back on the shelf,” Patrick mumbled, and yeah, this was why Brendon worked with people. The boy was pretty, and Patrick was huffy.

“Aw, dude, don’t worry about it, someone who works here’ll take care of it,” the guy said, brushing hair out of his eyes. Patrick could feel steam coming out of his ears as the idiot reached to put the book back on the shelf.

“I work here,” Patrick hissed, and he snatched the book out of Pete’s hands, and ran back to the 741s with it.

“Smooth,” Brendon snorted. “What, couldn’t get mad once you saw he was cute?”

“Oh shut up,” Patrick groaned, shoving the book back onto the shelf so hard he bend another in half before correcting himself.

“You did notice he was cute, right?” Brendon teased, pulling Patrick’s hair a little. Patrick made a low growl in the back of his throat and elbowed Brendon away.

“I noticed,” he said into the shelf, where only the books could hear him.

***

“How many books can I check out at a time?” the 398s asked Patrick. He shoved aside a half dozen copies of “Arabian Nights” and saw the beanie guy on the other side. Not wearing a beanie today, just with his fringe-y hair and a too wide grin.

“I’m not sure if there’s technically a limit,” Patrick said cautiously, “But I’ve never seen someone leave with more than twenty. Unless you have a bigger backpack, I’d keep it to ten. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious…” the guy reached through the shelf and pushed on the end of Patrick’s nametag to see it better. “Patrick.”

“Mmm hmm.” Patrick said, frowning as he moved the folklore back into place. The guy appeared next to Patrick, pulling a book on Eastern vampire myths off the shelves, and placed it on top of The Book.

“Mmm,” Patrick glared at the books as though they had done him a personal offense. The guy smiled at him, and walked down the row, picking up a book on clothing styles in Ancient Rome, Egyptian death customs, general war customs, then moved on to the next row. Patrick abandoned the book cart, and followed him.

The guy moved, predictably, into the comic book section, dropped the clothing styles and the war customs books next to a row of Teen Titans, and continued to walk, plucking out a how to draw book and a copy of Watchmen. Patrick followed him up and down shelves for twenty minutes, picking up all the books he discarded as he grabbed new ones, and feeling the muscles in his face begin to twitch. By the time Patrick’s arms began to burn under the weight of all the books he was carrying, the guy had led him back to the 921s, and dropped the entire stack, Marvel Encyclopedia on the bottom, right next to the Hitler books.

“I think I’ll get some books later,” he said, and winked at Patrick.

Patrick’s eye twitched as the guy walked out of the library.

***

“If it bugs you so much, why don’t you just tell him to stop?” Brendon asked, leaning on the book cart and staring over at the cute new worker, who sat at the front desk repairing books. Brendon had done very little but stare at the new guy that day, a dreamy look in his eyes.

“If Ryan bugs you so much,” Patrick said sourly, “Why don’t you just ask him out?”

Ryan looked over at the sound of his name, cocking his head slightly. Brendon laughed nervously, and gave him a tiny wave before glaring at Ryan.

“Why don’t you ask your Marvel guy out?” he demanded.

“Because I hate him!” Patrick snapped. Their boss, at the front desk, shot Patrick a look, and Patrick lowered his voice. “Because I hate him,” he whispered.

“Almost as much as you wanna bone him,” Brendon snorted. At that moment, the guy walked in, stupid beanie stupid smile stupid hair stupid eyes stupid walk, and beamed at Patrick.

“Yo Ryan, what up?” he called over the front desk, and Brendon and Patrick stared.

Ryan walked up to the front desk. “Pete, I’m working,” he hissed, but he grinned nonetheless.

“Son of a-” Brendon stamped his foot on the ground.

“Excuse me Brendon,” Patrick sighed, pushing the cart out from behind his friend. “It seems I have some books to reshelve. And he followed Pete, this time with the bright blue cart so that his arms wouldn’t get so tired.

***

One day, Patrick came into work late, and bolted to the 921 section, where, right next to the Hitlers, The Marvel Encyclopedia lay, front cover ripped halfway off. Patrick felt almost pained to look at it, and carried the injured book back behind the front desk to Ryan’s work station. Ryan snorted when he saw it.

“Put it on the pile,” he said, gesturing to a stack of damaged books with long, spidery fingers. Patrick felt his stomach twist into a knot.

“Can you fix it quickly?” he asked. “I think I know someone who likes to read this.”

Ryan paused at that, setting down the plastic tub of glue and paintbrush, and set the magnification glasses up on top of his hair.

“Oh my God,” Ryan said, letting out a tiny chuckle. “You care for him, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Patrick asked.

“I told him he was gonna get his nose broken, but you kinda like his kindergarten-y hair pulling, don’t you?” Ryan asked, laughing still.

“What are you talking about?” Patrick growled.

“You don’t hate him, you’re just thick!” Ryan cackled. He turned to Patrick, a smug grin on his face, and grabbed The Marvel Encyclopedia, then held it by its spine so that the pages faced down, and flipped through them, the pages making a familiar fluttering sound. As he did, dozens of slips of paper fell out onto the thin carpet, each inscribed with the same seven digits and a smiley, or on some, “PETE,” or “CALL ME.”

“I think those are yours,” Ryan said, a smug look on his face. He twirled the chair back around, shutting The Book for the last time.

“You- you knew-” Patrick sputtered, and as he pulled papers off of the ground, he spat out-

“Brendon likes you, you know!” and ran off with the stack of numbers. He barely noticed Ryan’s yelp of indignation as he scurried off.

***

“Hello?”

“Um, Pete?”

“Yeah, who is this?”  
“It’s, ah, Patrick. From the library?”

“Shit- ah!- Patrick? Yeah, yeah, hi!”

“Hey, you, ah, left your number in a library book?”

“Haha, yeah, so I did, aha-”

“You left 47 copies of your number in the same library book?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“Did you have a plan for after I called?”

“...a date?”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading as always! this is -kinda- based off of a true story, in that I do work at a library and for some reason someone keeps putting the Marvel Encyclopedia in the biography section. It didn't get me laid, but a girl can dream.


End file.
